


sine qua non

by robotsdontcry



Series: the greatest [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Relationship, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26079415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdontcry/pseuds/robotsdontcry
Summary: “Why didn’t you tell me you were going pro?” Shouyou blurts. He’s clutching his phone like it’s a lifeline, and all Kageyama says is, “I didn’t think I needed to.”
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Series: the greatest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893340
Comments: 13
Kudos: 185





	sine qua non

A conversation that never happened:

_I’ve decided to play in the V-league._

_Seriously? Are you sure you can handle it, Kageyama-kun?_ _You’re gonna get your ass kicked._

_Shut up. I’ll become the best. Just you watch._

It might not be real, but Shouyou thinks about it so often it could probably come true, if thoughts could manifest into reality. The day he hears from Yamaguchi that Kageyama’s going pro straight out of high school, he _feels_ —several things. First disbelief, then rage, and then something dangerously close to betrayal. Hinata Shouyou is a self-proclaimed expert at pretending things are okay, until he’s not, and that night he cries himself to sleep over another person for only the second time in his life.

Three months later, Kageyama doesn’t show up at the airport to send him off to Rio. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Kageyama marches to the beat of his own drum. He doesn’t wait for anyone, least of all Shouyou. He makes decisions independent of any other living soul in the world. Shouyou knows this. He should’ve expected it.

It hurts anyway. _I thought we were different._

* * *

One pale morning in Rio, as the sky is still settling on a shade of blue, Yachi calls him right as he’s finishing his daily jog down the beach. Oh, how Shouyou missed her voice. He tells her about Ninja Shouyou and the new techniques he’s been working on, and then Yachi starts talking about college. Her voice lights up as she describes the huge lecture halls and tree-lined paths, and Shouyou has no trouble imagining her walking among the giants armed only with her imagination and a pen and paper.

Inevitably, the conversation shifts to high school. “Have you heard anything from Yamaguchi lately?” “I still can’t believe Tsukki plays with the Mad Dog now.” Then, approximately forty-two minutes into the call, Yachi says the exact words he’s been dreading: “How’s Kageyama-kun?”

“Why’re you asking _me_?” Shouyou sputters.

“Um, because you guys are friends?”

Shouyou’s frustration, which he’s gotten so good at keeping a lid on over the past few months, boils over. “We’re _not_ friends! It’s always Kageyama this, Kageyama that. Why do people keep asking me about Kageyama? Why do I have to care about how he’s doing?”

“Hinata,” Yachi says. She doesn’t sound surprised, but Shouyou will wonder what that means later. Anger washes over him like a wave, swift and sharp, and his hands tremble with it. He has the sudden urge to sprint another three miles up and down the beach.

Quietly, he says, “I want to be strong on my own.”

A few minutes later, Yachi says she has to go. Evening class, she explains apologetically. _Don’t worry about it,_ Shouyou replies. When they hang up, he shoves his phone back in his pocket. The sun is starting to rise. He kicks at the sand.

Him and Kageyama, friends? Shouyou scoffs at the thought. They rarely hung out outside of volleyball. He can’t remember a single time when they talked about their lives, let alone their plans for the future. Their first two years at Karasuno were characterized mostly by arguments: Shouyou forgot to show up early to clean the gym on Tuesday, Kageyama was invited to All-Japan for the second year in a row while Shouyou steamed. Hair grabs, fists to the face, tangles of arms and legs. 

No, they’re not friends. Shouyou has dozens of friends and Kageyama’s definitely not one of them. It’s not like that, with them. It’s never been. The trouble comes when he tries to think about what exactly they are. _Teammates_ doesn’t cut it. Neither does partners, or rivals, or—

It’s always been something else.

* * *

Miyagi was too small, had been for years. Fear of stagnation took root in the pit of his stomach and kept growing until it started climbing up the walls of his throat, so the only logical solution was to move halfway across the world for two years, right? To prove to the world, and to himself, that the entirety of Japan was too small to contain Hinata Shouyou. 

In Brazil, he finds something new, something precious. He teaches himself to fall in love all over again with the sting of the ball on his forearms, the weight of it on his palms, the twirl as it leaves his fingertips. The sun, beating down on his face and shoulders. The sand, making his footsteps slow and clumsy. He learns to visualize the space of the court spread out in front of him, to sense and process and act all in a single breath. To pour the utmost care into every single action, so that not even a second is left to waste. 

In the process of finding himself, he meets the last person he would’ve expected to be finding himself too. Oikawa seems entirely different from the person he was in high school, less like a caged animal and more like an actual human being who, Shouyou discovers, is actually fucking hilarious. They trade jokes over dinner and drinks, and it’s so easy, so natural, that he almost forgets.

“Man,” Oikawa sighs one night, as they’re heading back to their respective lodgings. “If only I’d gotten to know you sooner.”

Across the near-empty plaza, among darkened shop windows and blinking yellow streetlights, five Olympic rings on a billboard catch Shouyou’s attention. For a moment, he forgets to breathe. The stadium is on the opposite side of the city but suddenly he can hear the crowd all the way from here, can taste the sweat and the lights and the blood running through his veins. Can picture the national team’s setter preparing to claim another service ace. The moment, imperceptible to anyone but Shouyou, when his eyes go as clear and calm as a spring hidden away in the mountains.

Only half a city away but it might as well be an ocean separating them. Time slipping through his fingers like sand. _Not yet_ , Shouyou reminds himself again. _Not yet._ He swallows over the lump in his throat, forces his attention back to Oikawa. “What do you mean?”

If Oikawa notices—and there’s no way he doesn’t, it’s a giant electric billboard two hundred feet away—he doesn’t say anything. Oikawa’s a people person at heart, no matter how much he tries to pretend otherwise. “When we played each other in high school,” he says, and his next words are a confession Shouyou never expected to hear, “I might’ve been wrong about you.”

Despite everything, Shouyou can’t help grinning. “Are you actually feeling regret about the past, Oikawa-san?”

“No,” he snaps immediately, and Shouyou snorts. That’s more like the Oikawa he remembers from high school, a boy with pride the size of a lion’s. Shouyou’s still figuring him out—as much as Oikawa wants to be figured out, given everything—but he thinks Oikawa might have the heart of one too. “Who am I kidding, anyway. It still would’ve been shitty.”

Shouyou sends a pout in his direction.

“Okay, maybe a little less shitty,” Oikawa concedes.

* * *

Later that night, out of pure spite, Shouyou texts Kageyama for the first time in months. _Look who I found in Brazil!_

Kageyama texts him back two days later: _Fuck off._

Shouyou laughs, then cries, and doesn’t bother hiding it this time.

* * *

“You sure do play to win, Shouyou!” 

Shouyou jogs over through the sand and returns the high-five, then lets the words sink in. Does he play to win? What _does_ he play for? 

Hours later, standing alone on the beach under a rapidly darkening sky, he’s still thinking about it. He supposes it’s love, or something close to it—love not only in the thrill of leaping up to spike and watching the world slow down in mid-air, but also in the bruised shins and sore muscles and the years spent practicing, falling, getting back up. Suddenly he’s fifteen years old and the December chill stings his face, and Natsu’s watching him toss the ball to himself in their backyard and saying, _the volleyball loves you, too._

It’s love, maybe, but it’s also something else. There’s an earlier memory he keeps coming back to: that moment in midair, eyes wide, palm ready to spike the ball, when he got his first-ever view from the top. The court, the players, the other side—from that height, he could see everything. It was his first sensation of infinity.

 _The sky is so big._

But inseparable from that beautiful, boundless sky was the person who first gave him a taste of it, who tossed to him and told him, as casually as anything, _have faith in me and fly_. The person who, for better or worse, claims a permanent place among the stars in that sky. It’s why there is no volleyball without Kageyama. It’s why Shouyou made the promise all those years ago, standing outside the gym as the wind rustled the treetops and brought with it the beginnings of a new season: _In the end, the one who’s finally going to beat you is me._

No, winning isn’t the point. The sky is the point, and therefore Kageyama is the point. The two are indivisible. Kageyama, the brightest star in the sky towards which Shouyou is continuously striving.

“What the hell,” he says aloud, horrified.

* * *

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going pro?” Shouyou blurts. He’s clutching his phone like it’s a lifeline, and all Kageyama says is, “I didn’t think I needed to.”

Shouyou’s sleepy, and maybe more than a little drunk, and the distant haze of Rio traffic and the half-light of the apartment and the sound of Kageyama’s voice over the line feel like something out of a dream-world. No, he must be awake. He’s awake and on the phone with Kageyama, though he can’t remember who called first. As it turns out, the only good thing that came out of sending Kageyama that picture of him and Oikawa two weeks ago is that they’re actually talking to each other again. 

Twelve hours ahead in Tokyo, Kageyama is silent over the line. Kageyama always ahead, Shouyou always chasing. Though, Shouyou thinks in a moment of clarity, he’d never forgive Kageyama if he waited even for a second.

 _Don’t you dare think you’re in this alone,_ he wants to shout. _I’ll catch up to you, and surpass you. I promised, didn’t I?_

“You didn’t tell me you were going to Rio,” Kageyama says, as if that explains everything. “You told everyone else. Even _Tsukishima._ ”

Shouyou snorts, then remembers himself. “That’s not an excuse.”

“Well, what do you want me to say then?” Kageyama sounds dangerously close to yelling. Another thirty seconds and this will devolve into one of their shouting matches—Shouyou mentally prepares himself—but then the voice on the other end goes unexpectedly quiet. “I thought you’d understand.” 

In the silence that follows Shouyou hears: _We never needed words before, so why start now?_ Of course, it makes sense, he shouldn’t have expected anything else—but right now he wants nothing more than to teleport to Kageyama’s apartment and grab a fistful of his shirt and shake some sense into him. 

“The only thing I understand is that you’re an asshole, Kageyama-kun.”

“What the hell?” Kageyama sounds affronted. For some reason, Shouyou feels quietly pleased. “I didn’t think it mattered. We had,” then, correcting himself, “ _have_ the same goal anyway.”

Maybe that’s it, Shouyou thinks. Maybe, in his own silent, stubborn way, Kageyama was waiting for him all along. Maybe there was never any room for doubt in the first place. Only the unflinching faith that their trajectories would always find a way to collide, because one was inextricably tied to the other. Because they were just like that.

“You really need to check your phone more often,” Shouyou says, instead. Instead of what? “You never answer any of my texts.”

“That’s because you text like your life depends on it.”

“It does,” Shouyou says, and Kageyama scoffs. But it does.

* * *

The sky beckons, and Shouyou follows. One year of sand and sweat and a plane ride later, he’s drafted into the MSBY Black Jackals, and this time it’s purely on his own merit. By now he’s proven again and again that his worth as a player is no longer tied to another, and he relishes the independence that comes with it, the freedom of growing into his own person. Rio teaches him, among many things, how to be fully present within his own body, and he carries that newfound awareness with him when he starts for the Jackals. 

He finds his own place on the team, and maybe he can’t hit spikes like Bokuto or receive like Sakusa, but he can jump, and that’s the only thing that ever mattered. Atsumu doesn’t need convincing. He helps Shouyou fly, no questions asked, and for that Shouyou is beyond grateful. It’s no surprise, then, that Jackals quickly become his new favorite group of people in the entire world. They’re passion and chaos and hunger rolled up into one team and he’s in love with it, the feeling of taking his place among the monsters. 

Life’s good, at least when he doesn’t think too much about it. But in the silences after fits of laughter and the spaces between practices and games and outings, the ever-present ache in his chest becomes too painful to ignore. At this point, it shouldn’t surprise him anymore, considering that it followed him across the ocean and back again. _Is it time yet?_ it asks, growing restless. _No, not yet,_ Shouyou tells himself, and forces himself to push it down.

That is, until one day Atsumu brings it up, and Shouyou can no longer ignore the thing that’s been tormenting him for the past three years. Though, in his defense, it comes in the form of a question he wasn’t expecting.

“So,” Atsumu says. Levels him with a stare that’s far too knowing for his own good, at this time of day, in the dim lighting of the bar. Shouyou tries not to squirm under his hawk-eyes. “I’m curious. Didja ever think about joining Tobio-kun’s team when you got back from Rio?”

“Huh?” Shouyou says. “Oh, not really.”

It’s true, and he knows this even as he says it. Sakusa says nothing, but Bokuto bursts out laughing even though Shouyou can’t find anything remotely funny about the situation. Atsumu keeps staring, though, his eyes glowing like tiny moons, and Shouyou fights against the urge to flee on the spot.

“Wait,” and Atsumu’s face turns murderous, “don’t tell me he dumped you or somethin’. I’ll kill him.”

“No, don’t!” Shouyou says quickly, before Atsumu can make good on his promise. Everyone knows Atsumu would just about kill for every single member of the Jackals—with the exception of Sakusa, towards whom Atsumu seems to feel no less than a hundred different, conflicting emotions. “It’s not like that. Seriously.”

“Really?” Bokuto cuts in. “Then why the hell aren’t you guys playing together?”

“That’s not the point,” Shouyou says. Struggles, for a long and painful moment, for the right words. He wants to say: with Kageyama, it doesn’t matter which side of the court they’re on. That never mattered.

Finally, to Shouyou’s immense relief, Sakusa sighs and takes pity on him. “Weren’t you two rivals in high school?” he asks, expression perfectly composed save for a single, arched eyebrow. 

“Well, yeah, of course.” That’s not the point, but it is. Shouyou rubs at his face, frustrated. How does he explain it? “What I mean is, it doesn’t matter if we’re playing for the same team, or even in the same country. We always end up in the same place, anyway. The real question is who can stay on the court the longest.”

For a moment, his teammates stare. Then Atsumu shakes his head. 

“I figured as much,” he laughs. “You two never did make any damn sense.”

* * *

You meet someone who changes your life. Then you move on. You meet someone after that, then after that. Your life is filled with hundreds of people who change you, in ways both big and small. People coming and going, atoms colliding and separating, the world revolving. 

Still, there is the one. There is thinking _I would defeat the whole world just to get to you._ There is crossing oceans and meeting other people and growing stronger and more independent, past the point of necessity or even practicality, just to become better for the one. _Love_ doesn’t even come close to describing it.

It’s feeling pure electricity on the court and going at each other’s throats off the court and racing each other down streets and up hilltops and through three short years at Karasuno and beyond. Late nights spent perfecting their quick in the silence of the empty gym, early morning races-turned-runs. Three years spent etching their names in history as the fearsome freak twins, the gods of high school volleyball. It’s an ache that Shouyou carries with him all the way to Rio, thrown into sharp relief when he pauses in the middle of his delivery route to watch number twenty on the Japanese national team flash across the screen. He wants to run away from it and towards it, to rip his heart out of his chest trying to reach it. It’s thrill and it’s terror and it’s a quiet, unshakeable faith:  _ As long I’m here, you’re the greatest. _

An ocean of atomic collisions, the odds of this particular chemical reaction less than zero-point-one percent. Kageyama Tobio, standing across the net under the blinding lights. Despite everything, they keep coming back together. Is it chance? Or something else? A law of nature, spoken into existence when Shouyou made a promise to Kageyama in their first year of high school?

Their eyes meet. Shouyou can’t look away. Maybe that’s it, after all.

* * *

“You’re here.” 

_I’ve been waiting._

“Yeah. I’m here.” 

_Good. Keep your eyes on me, because I have so much to show you._

* * *

The moment they leave the court and enter the players-only area, Shouyou flings himself at Kageyama. Wraps both arms around his neck, legs around his waist. Kageyama makes a sound that’s somewhere between annoyed and terrified but fumbles to catch him before they both fall over. They end up in an awkward tangle of limbs, Shouyou clinging on for dear life, Kageyama not making any move to put him down. 

“You’re heavy,” he grumbles.

Shouyou grins. “I got stronger.”

“I know,” Kageyama says, looking up at him. “I saw you play.” 

His face is contorted in an odd mixture of pride, exasperation, and poorly-concealed want. Of course. Shouyou nearly laughs out loud. Of course, even after all these years, Kageyama still doesn’t allow himself the simple thing of wanting another human being.

Their faces are so close. Shouyou licks his lips, watches as Kageyama’s eyes follow the movement. The world doesn’t stop turning, but perhaps it can allow this one quiet moment in its midst. Even surrounded by their teammates it’s just the two of them, dancing to a tune only they can hear.

“You can kiss me if you want, you know,” he informs Kageyama.

“ _What?”_

“I said you can kiss me,” Shouyou repeats. He watches with glee as Kageyama’s face contorts even further. “What, you’re not gonna do it?”

Kageyama surprises them both by suddenly and unceremoniously dumping Shouyou on the ground, but only after screwing his eyes shut and kissing him with all the urgency of the world ending. Shouyou can’t decide whether to laugh or curse as he lands on his ass, so he does both. Life could be worse.

He doesn’t know what his face looks like right now, but Kageyama must see something in it because he frowns and goes, with typical-Kageyama eloquence, “What.”

“Nothing,” Shouyou says, smiling.

_We’re here. We’re finally here._

**Author's Note:**

> two months ago, i didn't care about volleyball. then, in a shocking turn of events, haikyuu!! came along and sucked my entire soul out of my body.
> 
> in other words, i started reading/watching haikyuu approximately two months ago, and finished 402 today. long story short, this series ended up changing my life in a very tangible way, and i feel so incredibly lucky to have stumbled across it. i'm still pretty incoherent rn; i've been eating and sleeping and breathing nothing but volleyball for the past few months, but i regret nothing because no piece of fiction has ever made me feel emotions as powerful and vivid as this one has. 
> 
> and then there is kagehina. i could write a whole thesis trying to define their relationship and all the things they are to each other, and it still wouldn't be enough. instead, take this feeble attempt (part 1 of a 2-part series) to express how i feel about them! thanks for reading!!


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